Week One

Week one is finished and its been quite an experience. The first couple of days were spent relaxing and recovering from jet lag, but the rest of the week was pretty great. The Internet is pretty limited here, so it will probably be a couple of days before I can post any pictures or videos at an internet café. So I’m just going to post what I have now and follow up with pictures later!
Saturday was children’s day in Mozambique. Children’s day is a pretty huge celebration where kids get presents and candies and what not. And because I’m living at an orphanage, Children’s Day was that much more important. During the day, we went into the city and did some outreach for Children’s Day. We met a family at a park who live on the streets with four children. We had some time of worship and prayed for them and also gave them food. We had to be really careful when we were giving out food because people can start to riot and steal food. I guess last year, there was so many people at the park that they started throwing rocks at the people giving out food. Thankfully the whole thing went smoothly.
One distinct thing I remember about that day was talking with one of the mothers while we were waiting for the food truck to come. I was sitting next her talking about her baby and having a pretty good conversation (especially considering the very little Portuguese I know). Once the food came she kind of just stopped talking to me, stopped making eye contact, and just watched the cart of food as it passed by in front of her. I tried to ask her another question, but I don’t think she heard me. She was just so focused on the food; it really hit me how hungry she must had been. She wasn’t trying to be rude or anything, in fact I don’t even know if she realized she was doing it—it just had been that long since she had a meal. We gave out about nine meals, hugged them, said goodbye, and got ready to move on to the next group of people we would hand out food to. But the small interaction was just a glimpse of the hunger and the need of Mozambique.
One person I’ve met that has seen that hunger and that need is a missionary named Laura. She has been so kind to my team and I by inviting us over for dinner and taking us into the city. She used to work at Vanguard as an RD has sort of taken us under her wing and shown us a side of Zimpeto that not a lot of visitors see. She tells us stories of how some kids got to the center and the different things that the center does with abandoned or abused children that come through. Anyways, I’ll post some pictures as soon as possible! Have a great day everyone!